The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireless networks. Various types of networking technologies have been developed resulting in an unprecedented expansion of computing networks, telephony networks, and the like, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
As users become increasingly dependant upon wireless networks for business and personal needs, the desire for faster and more widely accessible wireless communications increases. In some instances, wireless networks may employ various techniques, such as hardware or software solutions, to increase the bandwidth and transfer rates, and the quality of service.
Some wireless networks can be increasingly susceptible to degraded performance under particular conditions. For example, a wireless network that employs a relay node to support communications between user equipment (UE), also referred to as a user device (e.g., a mobile terminal), and a donor cell (e.g., base station) can be susceptible to degraded performance when issues arise with respect to the communications link between the relay node and the donor cell, which, in some instances, may be referred to as the backhaul link. The relay node may be supporting communications connections between any number of UEs and may need to compete for the resources of the donor cell with a UE that is attempting to directly connect with the donor cell (not via the relay node). In this and other instances, the overall quality of service of the system may be diminished, if the connection between the relay node and the donor cell is negatively impacted.